Dreams do come true but sometimes they look funny.

We’ve been writing about dreams all week and here we are on our favorite day of the week, Thursday. This day is devoted to the core relationship. We don’t care if your dating, living together, browsing forengagement rings, married, in domestic partnership or unwilling to define or label your love. We are talking about two people relating. So put on your sun dress and kick off your shoes to run through the metaphorical meadows of dreams with us.

Lee says: I never thought I would marry so young. I dreamed my life very differently.I thought I would get my doctorate in Psychology and open up a practice in the South Bay of California where I can see the ocean. My office would have wood paneling and the shelves would be stuffed with books that I had written and that my colleagues and dedicated to me. I would wear flowing clothes and would be the super cool bohemian shrink. As for marriage, I would eschew it and instead would take lovers and the occasional long term live in. I would expand my mind through meditation and yoga. I would be the earth mother psychologist without ever having to give birth or anything as banal as that. This was my dream.

In retrospect, my dreams as a young woman were really fantasies and real dreams or goals didn’t come into focus until Paul and I became a couple.Please do not interpret this to be that I needed a man to become whole but I needed to be grounded in reality.The dreams I described above where clichés of what a psychotherapist was in the 70s. Therapists like that, if they still exist, are probably in their late 60s and are not taking as many lovers as they use to.

My dreams were also missing human contact. I had no lasting relationships or anything that would define me as a successful human being.I did not see friendships or children. I was alone, despite the occasional lay. So why would I think like that?

It wasn’t until Paul that I realized that I could live a life filled with love. The dreams he and I created were real, tactile and fulfilling. Soon after we committed to each other, my goals became less fantasy and more purposeful.I could see myself working with people in a meaningful way. I embraced my talent and looked at my abilities in an honest manner to maximize my potential. For the first time in my life I felt grounded and, at the same time, allowed to soar. I was wanted and loved.

It still sounds like hippy bullshit but it’s true for us. This will not get me any votes for feminist of the year but that was never one of my goals. When Paul and I got together, I began entertaining thoughts of motherhood only because of the possibility that I could give birth to another person like him. I could see myself being domestic not because he wanted me to but because I wanted to. Dreaming together deepens a relationship and gives it direction. When a couple doesn’t have this, it withers and dies. If you can’t see your future together, then you won’t have one.

After 21 years together, I am writing those books to fill up the shelves and have many people who think I’m a damn good therapist. I am less the bohemian earth mother and more the no nonsense tough Mom. I have taken lovers over the years. My first was the innocent physicist in the lab coat.Then it was the science teacher with chalk on his hands. Lately, he’s the sexy writer with the long hair and beard. I like this part of my dream and I won’t be waking up from it any time soon.

Paul says: It’s cool that we are writing this as we are about to sell our first book Dysaffirmations: Because this kind of stupid takes work! Dreams are a funny thing. What did I do today? Yelled at my daughter for her crappy chemistry grades, sat next to my wife in our office that’s really our sofa and published a book. My dreams have come true.